How IT firms are trying to plug commute gaps for employees

Companies have realised that ease of mobility is one of the factors key to attracting and retaining talent. Reducing travel time and making the commute more comfortable leads to better productivity and quality of lifeAvik Das&Shilpa Phadnis | TNN | November 05, 2018, 09:23 IST

IT corridors in Bengaluru are notorious for traffic snarls – the city’s frenetic charm is visible on gridlocked roads as commuters’ brave bumper-to-bumper traffic, leading to increasing travel time. There are no readymade congestion busters, but companies are doing their bit to take at least a few thousand vehicles off the road.

Companies have realised that ease of mobility is one of the factors key to attracting and retaining talent. Reducing travel time and making the commute more comfortable leads to better productivity and quality of life. At the heart of the issue is easy access to public transport or a feeder service, route optimisation and leveraging shared economy not just to beat tailbacks, but to save on the wear and tear as well.‘Self-sustaining model’

Infosys, for instance, has 29,000 employees at its development centre in Bengaluru. The company has proactively encouraged employees to use company and public transportation services.

“It’s a self sustaining model where employees subscribe to our service for a fee. Around 10,000 employees use the company transport in Bengaluru and we ply 180 buses that make 400 trips a day. The amount charged is calculated based on location and distance. We still have three BMTC buses plying in Bengaluru. We look at optimal usage through all our vendor partners based on location and usage,” said Richard Lobo, head of human resources and executive vice president at Infosys.

Lobo said the company provides reserved parking for employees who car-pool and also encourage employees to cycle to work.

Its cross-town peer Wipro too encourages car-pooling but has also rolled out initiatives for sustainable commuting – for instance, employees using electric vehicles can charge their cars for free at the Sarjapur campus.

‘Weather office’

Going further, Wipro has done significant work to improve the indoor air quality in their campus. The company has set up a full-stack weather station in the Sarjapur campus to monitor and improve air quality. Hariprasad Hegde, senior vice-president and global head of operations in Wipro, said the weather station monitors particulate matter PM10, PM2.5 on a continuous basis and computes the air quality index.

“We have 35,000 employees working in Bengaluru and urban air pollution is a major focus of health concern. Ambient air quality affects indoor air quality. Temperature and indoor CO2 levels within buildings play a crucial role not only for energy consumption, but also for occupant performance and particularly cognitive performance,” he said.

Hegde said information on ambient air quality is fed into building automation systems that will modulate plant room equipment geared up towards better energy performance. The information dashboards are integrated with its global energy command centre. The reference-grade equipment conforms to the US Environmental Protection Agency and Central Pollution Control Board norms.

Feeder buses

Others have gone the whole hog in ensuring their employees travel comfortably. Intel India, for instance, has a dedicated BMTC Volvo service, and its own Intel buses, inter-office bus service and metro feeder bus service for employees to commute from the nearest pick-up points of their residence to the office campus, ensuring good lastmile connectivity. These facilities are available at no cost to employees. About 64% of Intel India’s employees use the bus service for office commute, up from 53% in 2014.

Cisco said a fourth of its employees use the company transport and it has a fleet of over 400 completely-automated vehicles (buses/Innovas/ sedans). Cisco provides 70% subsidy to the transport users.

“We provide feeder service for Metro and have interoffice shuttles between Cisco offices. By providing mass transport service, we have kept over 2,000 vehicles off the roads. We encourage employees who don’t use our transport service to carpool and cycle to work. Approximately 2,500 employees have subscribed for the app-based carpool initiative,” the spokesperson said.

Pass the ride

Pradeep Lalla, chief executive of Embassy Services, said they encourage employees to take BMTC buses for which they buy passes from the public transport provider. “The biggest user is Philips. Others include Cerner and Rolls Royce. Philips takes about 1,000 passes,” he said. Embassy is working for a similar arrangement in Embassy Tech Village with 20,000 employees. It plans to start a similar initiative in two months.

Another city-based developer, RMZ, that owns and operates RMZ Ecoworld and RMZ Ecospace, said they are in talks with BMTC to roll out its service with business parks.

“Two months ago, we had a meeting that was attended by the BMTC head, traffic and police commissioners and representatives from the companies in Ecoworld. There were 80 clients and most were keen to use the service. We have completed the route mapping and are awaiting feedback from customers. Most companies have shared employee data for route planning and we initially plan to start with 100 buses,” an RMZ executive said.